Life has no ‘undo’ button…choose wisely

I was talking with my good friend, Chuck, this weekend.  He was doing some business work in an excel document and he expressed his pleasure with the ‘undo’ button.  You know, that little arrow in the upper left of our screens that can undo–or reverse–the most recent action we just took within the document.  Like Chuck, I’m thankful for this also.

As often happens, our conversation shifted to life…and the fact that it does not have an ‘undo’ button.  Now I suppose some people will think differently.  They may say you can quit a job you don’t like, sell the house you thought you liked, transfer from the college you thought was a good fit, end a relationship you thought would last forever.  I get where they’re coming from, you can start over–but I do not see that as an ‘undo’.  When working in  excel and word and other applications and we hit the undo button, there is no longer any sign of the move we reversed and undid.

In life, this is not the case.  We think, we feel, then we act. And these actions produce an outcome and reality that cannot be undone.  While we can choose to evolve and change our reality, the experiences of our jobs, college choices, relationships and so on remain in our past…in our memories.  Now when tragedy and accidents occur–and trust me on this one–I would pay a great deal to have the ‘undo’ button.  I’d have hit that sucker real hard back in July of 1992.  But, we cannot.

So we move on.  Perhaps we may all consider slowing down a bit and being conscious of our thoughts, feelings and actions.  I sure am!